Failure: The theme of The Last Jedi ...

It's not a theme about failure. More like a theme of not living in the past. Forgiveness and you can be someone no matter who you are. You don't have to come from some long royalty.

 

Yeah "no matter who you are" but you have to be extremely gifted with the force...

 

No. You don't have to have the force. It's not saying you have to be gifted with that to be someone. It's saying you don't have to have a name or royalty. It plainly shows Poe can be a leader, Finn can come from a bad background, Holdo and so on...

 

You mean just like Anakin, Luke, Han, Leia, Lando, etc?

 

I kind of get what the OP means, but I'm not sure I agree that it's a bad thing.

For instance, look at perhaps the three biggest failures of just the heroes of the story-

Rey fails in bringing Luke to the Resistance physically (and in getting trained by him)
Finn and Rose fail in bringing the Master Codebreaker to Poe
Holdo fails in her escape plan

But ultimately, these failures all come together and our heroes manage to weather the storm anyway. The First Order is able not only to continue their tracking of the fleet, but notices the transports evacuating. Rey leaves without Luke, and even Leia's allies do not respond to their distress signals. But in the end, Luke shows up on Crait- not physically as many have wanted (both in the actual Resistance and in real life fans), but his appearance manages to inspire hope in the galaxy, as we see in that final scene.

The entire film is a series of poorly laid plans, but I think it's important to note that for the most part regardless of their failures, the characters don't become passive (which would have likely been poor writing by default). Instead, we see the Resistance just constantly beaten at every turn up until the point where it really matters and they manage to escape, once all the storylines come together.

 

It's almost like hope is a theme of the series.............

I thought the Dunkirk comparison was ridiculous at first, but after watching it again....it does have some comparative value....'the best laid plans' cliche...and the chaos of war where nothing ever really turns out the way you think. Etc.....

 

I could see that. I don't think it's some intentional nod to Dunkirk, but it does kind of seem like that. Especially for Nolan's movie, given how often the characters fail in their endeavors to get off the beach.

 

Yeah I believe somebody pointed it out on twitter and he responded by tagging Nolan and saying something like "great minds think alike"

 

They weren't exactly nobodies, or at least Luke and Leia weren't. Leia had a two sets of noble parents. Her real and adopted. Luke had Anakin and Padme. Padme was more a someone growing up than Anakin was.

Han and Lando...no

 

Naboo had an elective monarchy, there was no hint that Padme made her career as a monarch and later a senator by nothing than her own merit, there were no hereditary titles.
Same goes for Leia, she was a senator of the republic on her own merit and that's what made her an influential leader of the rebel alliance, not his Alderanian nobility which was blown to pieces along with the planet.
Anakin, Luke, Han, Lando, Chewie, none of them have any relationship with nobility or royalty whatsoever and where all very capable of being heroes, so what is the new message?

 

I get the whole failure as a theme, but at some points it did seem more like "Bad Decisions leading to Fortuitous Outcomes".

Poe's decision to take out the dreadnaught? Bad decision. But they probably don't make it to Crait if the Dreadnaught fires on them while in pursuit. Also if they had made it to Crait and the FO discovered their installation I'm, pretty sure that the Dreadnaught's gun would have punched right through the Rebel Base. (I readily accept there is an argument to be made that if the Dreadnaught is on her tail maybe Holdo doesn't try fly to Crait)

Rey's decision to try to turn Ben? Bad decision. But it ultimately sets into motion the events that gets Snoke cut in half.

Finn's decision to take the mission to Canto Bight? Bad decision. It ends up getting a lot of people killed. But the Fatheir Stampede sets Broom Boy on the path of the Resistance who will presumably become some great Star Wars figure and Force User, one day

 

It remains to be seen whether either of these are truly fortuitous, though.

(I assume broom boy is, of course. But Kylo may end up being far worse for the Resistance than Snoke).

 

Perhaps, but I doubt Snoke would have been goaded and manipulated into letting the remnant of the Resistance escape on Crait. At least for the moment it was fortuitous.

 

Don't forget Kylo's bad decision.

On Crait. Dude decides to focus all his attention on Luke rather than ending the resistance once and for all. Even Hux is trying to tell him this. But Kylo just knocks Hux out of his way.

He was too stupid to realize, until it was too late, that Luke was just a distraction so the Resistance would escape.

 

Qiu Gon did die in a fight..... that isn't exactly succeeding

 

Qui Gon was wiser than the dogmatic fools of the council, that's why he always went against them. In the end the was the first to achieve immortality and pass this knowledge to the others...

 

I love the Dunkirk comparison. I see it as follows. Dunkirk shows victory in adversity. But a different kind of victory. Though the german Blitzkrieg inflicted a terrible defeat on the allied armies in 1940. Dunkirk shows that in a moment where all hope has faded, that same hope can help clutch victory from the jaws of defeat. A different kind of victory. The victory of retreat and 'saving what we love'. The victory of the symbol: that the British armed forces are defeated, the evacuation gives a shimmer of hope that victory might one day be achieved if only people would persevere like they did at Dunkirk: the Dunkirk spirit. Retreating, avoiding the direct confrontation, requires a different kind of heroics than that of the pitched battle or the direct confrontation. That's what the movie, Dunkirk is about.

That is what The Last Jedi is partly about. That direct confrontation is not always the best option, sometimes avoiding the fight, throwing away the sabre, surviving is more important.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 4, 2018, Original Post Date: Jan 4, 2018 ---

Here's Luke:

 

I actually mean when it comes to their apprentices.

But, yeah... Qui Gon lost against Darth Maul.
Jedi don't really die though, they live on as force ghosts that can still influence the living.

(Hope to see lots of them in the next ep.)

 

i get what you where saying, i was just attempting to make a bad joke

and yes i hope to see that too. They could do some interesting stuff with Hayden Christensen and Adam Driver. Kylo/Ben was obviously trying to imitate Vader, now seemingly/hopefully having chose to continue down the Dark Side path having Anakin show up and explain that at the end he saw the error of his ways and try and persuade Kylo to do the same, could be a very interesting way to have Kylo reject Vader and move on from the conflicted teenage like character we've seen so far into becoming his own man.
It could also be used to replace some of the emotional weight that would of been in this film if it wasn't for Carrie Fishers sad passing.

So I think something along those lines could be interesting if they decide to go in that direction